Transcriber: Lujain Elmallah Reviewer: Ines Dif
Enid Blyton has a lot to answer for.
It was through reading her books as a child,
The Famous Five and The Secret Seven series that I developed
a love of adventure. It seemed like an ordinary day out with friends and
a dog could be transformed into an amazing adventure. I was hooked.
And yet in real life, all the adventures I read about seemed to be men.
And I wasn't a man, nor did I have an awful lot of pocket money.
And I imagined that the expeditions
and adventures that they ever took would be too expensive for me.
So I began to believe it wasn't possible for me to be an adventurer.
Yet in nineteen ninety six,
I became the first British women to ski to the magnetic North Pole.
Prior to that, I'd never been further north than Aberdeen in Scotland.
I'd never done any cross-country skiing before,
and I'd never experienced wearing the same clothes for an entire month.
Having achieved such a success,
I realized that I was capable of far more than
I had imagined possible before that,
and I realized that that's about transformation.
Transformation is about changing how we think, not what we know.
It's about seeing and believing that bigger things are possible and having
the willingness to take a step into the unknown despite uncertainty.
When Bill Gates was reading
the New York Times article that talked about poor sanitation being one of
the biggest reasons for early childhood mortality in developing countries,
he was intrigued to discover more about that problem.
And as he learned and began to pay attention more to it,
he tried to get some universities involved to see if they would be
interested to help think about ways to solve the problem.
But there seemed to be little interest.
However, he wasn't deterred because he believed he could find a way.
And so the Reinvent the Toilet challenge was created.
Grants were awarded to 16 researchers around the world and it became
a competition. What Bill Gates had realized is he had to transform how other
people viewed that problem.
He had the belief to move forward and find a way to address it,
even though there was a high degree of uncertainty.
Back in my life, when I left school and got a job in an organization,
I hankered after having some adventures and one day on the notice board at work,
there was an advert talking about
an expedition that was going to be organized by an international charity.
And five employees could go and spend three months in a remote part of
the world carrying out scientific community and adventure projects.
And you got your salary paid.
I thought everybody would apply for this,
and it seemed to me the great chance to have an adventure.
Well, there was a selection process involved which involved over two days.
We had to go through a whole series of mental and physical challenges,
often not knowing when they would be happening and what they would be.
So there was a high degree of uncertainty.
I thought the best way to cope with this situation was to draw upon my strengths,
remind myself of the things I knew I was good at in other situations,
such as enthusiasm and decisiveness.
And sure enough, those things helped me get through and I find myself winning
a place on the expedition.
I then had to raise fifteen hundred pounds to subsidize my place and
I arrived in Kenya and spent three months there with one hundred
and twenty other young people from all around the world to carry out
a series of scientific, community and adventure projects.
What that expedition did is it changed my life.
It transformed me and enabled me to believe that
I had bigger capabilities than I had ever imagined and envisaged possible.
And then after that, back in the U.K. ,
I took part in what is another important aspect of transformation,
taking time to reflect. I looked at what had helped me to be successful
on that expedition. And reflection enables us to look at
the things that have worked.
Understand what we can learn from them
and think about how we can apply them in different aspects of our work
and life going forward. It was an amazing experience and also gave me
the confidence to look for bigger and more exciting challenges in
the future.
What came up next was another advert in the newspaper six years later,
still with this idea of adventure in my mind,
I know transformed my thinking about what adventure actually meant.
This advert said challenging opportunities
for people not afraid of hard work in a rapidly changing environment.
This was an opportunity for a one year contract in a war zone.
And whilst most people thought I was completely crazy to even consider it,
I saw it as a chance to have another adventure.
In fact, adventures are all around us all the time,
we don't need to go to the North Pole to have an adventure,
you can have one every single day.
Try something different to eat for your breakfast,
walk down a street in your town or city that you've never been done before
and see what you can learn there.
Just take a conversation with your loved one and ask them
a different question than you've ever asked before.
All of these things are examples of stepping into the unknown,
of doing something that has an uncertain outcome,
but with the innate belief that we learn something from it.
And that's what transformation is all about.
When I got the job in the war zone,
I survived and I realized that these challenges enable us to learn and grow.
What also happens is we learn about risk taking,
which is a core part of stepping into
the environment where things are uncertain.
That then meant when the next opportunity came along,
I was ready for the real big challenge,
and part of that evolution of growth and development is what Carol Dweck calls
the growth mindset, our willingness to embark into uncertain situations,
to keep seeing perseverance as an opportunity to learn.
Well the next time the advert said it wanted 10 novice Arctic explorers
to ski three hundred and fifty miles to the magnetic North Pole.
I had absolutely no idea if that was going to be possible,
but there were two criteria that the team were looking for.
The first was the ability to work in a team and you could to do that.
And the second was the ability to raise fifteen thousand pounds to pay from
a place on the expedition. I had absolutely no idea how to do that.
But the belief I had in my mind was if it's meant to be,
I'll find a way to make it happen.
So I sent off for the application form,
would you believe it came back and it was all pictures of men and
the title was Are You Man enough for the ultimate challenge?
Well, that certainly motivated me to apply,
as did hundreds and hundreds of others
in that process of selection.
Again, I thought it was important to draw on strengths
and be reminded of my strengths,
because those were the things that any of us,
when we're thinking about transforming and developing our capabilities,
gives us a degree of confidence,
the strengths or the things that we enjoy doing and that give us energy
and enthusiasm. So again, I reminded myself of the strengths that I had used
on other expeditions in the past,
and surely those things would help me to get in the expedition team.
And yes, they did. I was selected as one of a team of 10 novices
for this expedition, but the challenges didn't stop there because
I still had to raise a substantial amount of money that
I had no idea how to do it, that where that is,
where the sense of belief comes in belief that no matter what you do,
even if successful or not, you'll learn something from it.
Well, I wrote to all my friends, family members, sponsors,
companies that had anything to do with the cold or women or adventure.
Most people didn't bother applying, and if they did, they said no.
However, one sponsor eventually agreed to support the expedition.
And there were two good reasons for that.
Our expedition was going to be filmed by the BBC and if successful, of course,
I found out I'd be the first British woman to get there.
So there was a compelling reason for them to support me.
They were going to trust me and put their trust in me.
So now I had to put my trust in my fellow team members who are going together
with me into an environment that virtually wants you dead,
where survival is an option.
So what we had to do was to build trust,
to transform ourselves from this bunch of individuals into a team,
a challenge that many leaders these days can face.
It was back to strength's sharing together what we were good at
and what we felt we brought to the team accompanying with that,
recognizing what were our vulnerabilities
and where we prepared to share what they were.
Because in an environment like the Arctic,
as with many organizations as well,
you can't control things when you're in a team or as a leader.
There's so many factors that are outside of our control.
So we have to be able to accept and let go of those things and focus
on what we can control. That was about being open and sharing.
And when any of us are willing to accept and share our vulnerabilities,
we unconsciously give permission for others to do the same.
How we did this was we all created a What-If list,
writing down what our greatest fears were about participating in the expedition.
What if we meet the polar bear? What if somebody falls through the ice?
What if I just can't stand the people I'm sharing a tent with?
And lo and behold, when we shared all those fears together,
many of people shared them, too. And now we just didn't feel so alone.
We were much more connected emotionally as a team.
We were transforming ourselves by our willingness to act,
to step into a situation that had a high degree of uncertainty,
but with an innate belief that it would work out and we would learn something.
That expedition took over 30 days in temperatures that were often cold enough
to freeze your flesh in seconds.
And yet in the end, we were successful as a team.
Back in the U.K. , in the comfort of my own home,
I began to reflect on what this had all been about.
I never realized that I could achieve something like that.
And yet I had, I had transformed my view not only of what adventure meant,
but about what any of us can do to really step out and challenge ourselves in
the world. I realized there was a bigger reason for it.
And if I could use that experience of my journey and getting to the North Pole,
maybe it could inspire other people to think about what their North Pole is
and to transform themselves and go on that journey.
So you don't need to be a man or have a lot of money to go on an adventure.
All you need is the desire to transform the belief that you can achieve it,
the willingness to take action and to act despite uncertainty.
And who knows, just like Enid Blyton, you too can have a great adventure.
Thank you.